This week's bento box is an example of a type of bento box which is designed to hold onigiri or omusubi (rice balls) securely.

While onigiri are very portable, they can get smashed around if you just carry them loose, and fitting them in a regular flat bento box can be a bit awkward sometimes. This is where the onigiri bento box comes in.

Onigiri (or omusubi, the other name for the same thing), the cute little rice ball, has really become popular outside of Japan in the last few years, in large part it seems due to its iconic status in anime and manga. While the onigiri is not limited in Japanese food culture to just bento use, it's an indispensable part of the bento maker's repertoire.

The keys to bento calorie control: the box, the rice and the salt content

In Selecting the right bento box, I talked about how important it was to select the right size of box, especially if you are using bento lunches as a tool to lose weight. The other critical factor is to control the amount of rice you put into the box, if you are making Japanese style bentos.